


About a Plant

by tehtarik



Series: SpiritAssassin Week 2017 [4]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Confessions, M/M, Pre-Rogue One, SpiritAssassin Week, SpiritAssassin Week 2017, capture fic, dialogue-heavy, have i mentioned that these two are idiots, spiritassassin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 07:55:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10759995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tehtarik/pseuds/tehtarik
Summary: Baze’s eyes adjust to the rank gloom of the unit, and it is then that he realises that there’s someone shackled directly opposite him.Wait. He knows that silhouette, that chuckle–“Well,” says Chirrut, “Fancy seeing you here.”Baze gets captured by ravagers. And meets his new cellmate, who is definitelynotsomeone he expected to see.





	About a Plant

**Author's Note:**

> For SpiritAssassinWeek 2017 on tumblr.  
> Prompt is: _confessions_

Baze is a skilled fighter, fast and tenacious, but there are too many ravagers in the fray.

They knock away his knives and the pair of blasters he’d surreptitiously brought to the mission. The Temple Elders had sent him to bring resources to an outlier settlement that had been plagued by ravager raids, but instead, he’d run into the ravagers themselves.

One of the ravagers strikes the back of Baze’s head with the butt of a blaster rifle; another kicks his knees in, and the third smashes their boot into his jaw. Baze hawks out a gurgled stew of blood and curses.

“Throw him in with the other one. We’ll decide what to do with him later,” sneers the first ravager.

He’s hauled off to one of the crawler units in the middle of the ravagers’ caravan, the rustiest, dankest unit of all, smelling of piss.

“You’re in for a good time with your new cell-mate.” The guard at the doorway of the prison unit bares fangs at him. “Fuckin’ Force-botherer.”

They put restraints on his wrists and slam the door behind them. Light slants in from the barred skylight in the ceiling. The locks click and seal. They don’t sound too secure; if somehow he can free himself, he’ll be able to kick the door down and escape this shithole.

Baze’s eyes adjust to the rank gloom of the unit, and it is then that he realises that there’s someone shackled directly opposite him.

Wait. He knows that silhouette, that chuckle–

“Well,” says Chirrut, “Fancy seeing you here.”

“What,” says Baze, struggling (and somewhat failing) to draw a deep calm breath, “in the name of all things holy are you doing in here?”

“Waiting for you.”

“I will--ignore the implications of your last statement for awhile. I’m sure I’ll understand things better the longer I sit here in the dark listening to you.” Baze grits his teeth, tries to move his wrists within the cuffs. He’s still seeing the odd star from the blow to his head. “And how did you know I was going to wind up here in this cell? And no cheating answers!”

“I didn’t. But The Force did.”

“I said no cheating answers!”

“The Force,” says Chirrut calmly, “does not play by your rules. There are no cheats in the Force.”

“Chirrut.”

“Fine,” snaps Chirrut. “If you must know, I’m here because you owe me something.”

“ _I_ owe you something?” Baze raises an incredulous eyebrow. Good thing he’s all shackled up secure like this, or else he’d have leapt across the space between them and given that entitled bastard a good shaking.

“Yes. A confession.”

Baze breathes. “What do I have to tell you that I haven’t already told you? You know that I don’t keep secrets from you.”

“We’ll see.” Chirrut shifts in the dark. Baze can hear him moving his neck, straightening the cricks out of his bones. “In our shared quarters in the Temple, there is a single window. Do you remember what used to sit on the windowsill?”

Baze is _really_ wondering if he’s indeed having this conversation. Sometimes talking to Chirrut can be such a surreal experience. Not always in a good way. “Yeah. I don’t know. Some old carvings from the souk. A plant.”

“That’s right. Think about the plant.”

“Still don’t where you’re going with this.”

“The plant.”

“I’m thinking of the plant, Chirrut.”

“What kind of plant is it?”

“Uneti seedling. Found it growing somewhere and put it in a pot and gave it to you.”

“Describe the plant to me. And just do it. Don’t ask why.”

Might as well play along. “It’s green. Ish. Long leaves. Actually no. It’s dead.”

“Ha!” Chirrut shouts, suddenly. “Have you got anything to confess?”

“About the plant,” says Baze, deadpanning.

“About the plant.”

Baze breathes deeply. His headache is getting worse. The smell of the place isn’t helping, and he’s really straining his eyes trying to see Chirrut’s expression, trying to see if Chirrut has been hurt by the ravagers.

“I killed it,” he says. “I spilled battery acid on it by accident.”

The unit begins to rumble as the engines start firing. The ravager caravan is on the move.

“Thank you,” Chirrut says. “For confessing.”

“That’s all you wanted to know.”

“It is.”

“Good,” says Baze. “Now. Would you please tell me why. The fuck you are locked up in this shithole cell? I thought you’d gone to visit the Cadera Monastery.”

“I was on my way there,” Chirrut answers. “But the Force pulled me off my path. I felt disinclined to go to the monastery. I just kept being bothered by something. Then I thought of you. Then I remembered something I wanted to ask you. So I went to find you out in the desert. I came across the ravagers and decided to wait with them until you arrived.”

Baze tries to process the nonsense of Chirrut’s story. He can’t quite manage it. But then again, this is Chirrut. The more he tries to explain something (and he does it in a way that makes his logic sound like the only obvious thing in the galaxy), the less sense it actually makes. 

He will make a good candidate as future Venerable Master Guardian of the Temple.

“So the thing you wanted to ask me was about the plant.”

“It was,” Chirrut agrees. More silence. “Baze?”

“I’m here.”

“You’re hurt. I can hear your breathing. They hit you hard.” Chirrut’s voice goes tight. “They won’t get away with this.”

“And the ravagers didn’t hurt you?” says Baze.

“I didn’t fight them. While waiting for you, I thought I’d talk to them about the Force, and how we are all equal in it, and that there is purpose to be found if we sought it in the Force. Sadly, they were less than eager to listen.”

“So you went up to a bunch of bandits and started preaching at them. No wonder they called you a Force-botherer.”

“I was making small talk,” says Chirrut indignantly.

“Next time,” says Baze trying to be conciliatory, “next time you want to go out and preach the scriptures of the Whills around the desert, I’m coming with you.”

“Why?” Chirrut’s voice is suddenly sharp. “Why is it so important that you go where I go?”

“What d’you mean ‘ _why_ ’? Why even ask such a stupid question?”

“Because apparently I am a stupid person and a fool,” snaps Chirrut. “So tell this fool why.”

“Because.” Baze is going to need a lot of air in his lungs for this. So he takes the deepest breath that he can, like he’s preparing to enter into a deep meditative state. Except he is nowhere close to meditating. Then the rant blows out of him. “ _Because I care_. I care about you and what happens to you. Do you _honestly_ think that I enjoy being such a nag? It goes against my very nature, and my god, Chirrut, sometimes I wish I can just abandon you to all the ravagers of the world. But I can’t. _Because I can’t_. So instead I wish a sinkhole will open at my feet and then I’d get flushed down and out through the asshole of the galaxy. I wish I’d get eaten by wolves because because because. Because you’re so _fucking_ infuriating sometimes. You know why? Because! That’s why!”

“You can just say,” Chirrut’s voice is unperturbable. A serene note that somehow makes some of the anger leach out of Baze. “You can just say that you love me.”

“I love you,” says Baze. “And I always have. That’s why. Because I love you.”

The minutes inch past like flies. The ravager caravan must be crossing stony terrain, because the unit jerks and jolts and worsens Baze’s headache.

“Baze,” says Chirrut.

“Still here.”

“About that plant. I really liked that plant. I know you grew it specially for me in the back garden of the Temple. When it flowered you transferred it into a pot and gave it to me. You didn’t just find it. You grew it and tended to it.”

“It’s just a plant. I’ll grow you another. Takes a long time for the seed to germinate, but I’ll manage.”

“I am glad that you are here with me. And I love you too.”

The unit begins to slow down. The ravagers are stopping.

“I think,” says Chirrut, “that the Force is done with us being here. It’s time for us to go home.”

There is a clink of metal, the sound of unlocking. And then Chirrut shakes the restraints off his wrists and crosses the unit to where Baze is. He holds up a tiny device that looks like a many-pronged star. It’s an old unlocking gadget that is only ever handmade these days. An antique. But it will definitely be able to unfasten the cuffs.

“You had an escape means all this time,” says Baze in the deadest, flattest tone that he can muster.

“Surely you didn’t think that I wouldn’t have a backup plan.” Chirrut works the mechanism on Baze’s cuffs. They click open and Baze drops his arms to his side in relief, rolls his shoulders, cracks his neck.

“One day you’ll be the death of me. Mark my words.”

Chirrut kisses the chafed parts of Baze’s wrists. Wipes Baze’s face with his sleeve. “Until then, I’ll be your life.”

“Let’s go,” says Baze.

As the unit grinds to a halt, he kicks down the door and they burst out, the pair of them, into sunlight.

 

 

* * *

 


End file.
